


At the Beginning After the End

by octobersymphony



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octobersymphony/pseuds/octobersymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four snapshot from the Australian Grand Prix 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Beginning After the End

**Author's Note:**

> All of the characters in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (Read: This never happened.) Lyrics excerpts from songs by The Mountain Goats, Josh Ritter, Matchbox Twenty and Indigo Girls.

_the stage is set_  
 _someone's going to do something someone else will regret_  
 _I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code_  
 _the fuse will have to run out sometime_  
 _something here will eventually have to explode_

"I wouldn't want to be you," Kimi says, walking beside you through the paddock. You've been held hostage for fifteen minutes while the photographers were taking approximately ten zillion pictures of the drivers all lined up as if you were a school class on graduation day. Maybe sitting in the sun for too long has fried your brain, but you honestly have no clue what he's talking about.

Of course Kimi, being Kimi, is not forthcoming with any further information until you ask.

He shrugs. "Stuck in the middle."

It's still not much of an explanation, and you _wish_ you didn't know what he meant, but you know Kimi is right. There's your team and Lewis, who you genuinely like and get along with as well as you got along with all your past team mates; but you've been friends with Fernando for longer than you've signed the McLaren contract and you refuse to give that up.

Whenever you forget to hold your tongue and carelessly mention Fernando's name when you're in the motor home, icy silence greets you. Ron glares, and Norbert huffs and crosses his arms, and Lewis... Lewis looks _dejected_. At first you thought that he didn't like the idea that you got on better with some other driver than with your own team mate, but when you made a point of being friendly with Lewis and hanging out, you realized that if he was jealous, it wasn't of _Fernando_.

You know that there's a story behind their rocky relationship last season and that there's more to it than what's been written about it in the press and mentioned in the paddock, but Fernando never talks about it and you're afraid that Lewis will fall apart if you ask. So you don't.

"Trust me, sometimes even I don't want to be me," you tell Kimi, a grain of truth wrapped in layers of humour, because you _are_ tired of it.

Of course, the worst part of it all is that Fernando now treats you differently ever since you joined McLaren, almost... cautiously, as if you've suddenly become the enemy. You miss the easy companionship you used to have. You miss your friend – the one who got drunk with you on his plane and who gave you his microwave and who was always around to offer advice on how to get through the cut-throat world of Formula One when you were a rookie. Now, there are suddenly awkward silences where there used to be jokes, and you know there is stuff you can't talk about anymore.

You wonder if they're right when they say you cannot be friends with other drivers, but you don't really want to believe that, and Fernando never had any issues with Kimi driving for Ferrari, not even when they were competing for the title, which is what makes this so unfair.

Maybe, you think, Lewis isn't the only one who is jealous.

* * *

_and memories were like coins that tumbled_  
 _somersaulting through the deep_  
 _down every well we threw them in_  
 _until they came to the top again_

Most of the time, you don't think about him. Drivers come and go, and those who are lucky get to stay for a couple of years. Or maybe those are the unfortunate ones; you haven't quite worked that out yet. Either way, Formula 1 is always a rush of new faces, while familiar ones disappear. Doors closing, windows opening, and all that bollocks.

It's not like there's a huge Jacques-shaped hole every race weekend. It's not like you mope around and miss him. Fuck it, for the longest time you didn't even get along with each other, and just because the two of you hung out sometimes in the later years doesn't mean that he was your best buddy.

Seeing Dannii, though, brings back all the old memories, because Dannii, in your mind, is always inseparably linked to Jacques.

She smiles at you, and when she raises up on tip-toes to kiss you on the cheek, your senses are suddenly playing tricks on you and it's not her sweet perfume you smell but Jacques' aftershave. And you _miss_ him. You fucking miss him so much.

She chatters away, telling you and Jules about her latest projects and asking after the team's progress during the winter, until you can't stand it anymore and you have to ask.

"Have you heard from Jacques lately?" you blurt out, interrupting Dannii mid-sentence.

Something flashes across her face, and her smile turns softer. "Of course I have. We chat on the phone a lot. He loves racing in the States, but I think he misses all this."

You feel you heart beating fast and hard in chest, hoping you're not wrong to hear the "you" behind her "all this".

Reaching over to give your hand a little squeeze, Dannii says, "You should call him."

And maybe... maybe you will.

* * *

_when my smile gets old and faded_  
 _wait around, I'll smile again_  
 _shouldn't be so complicated_  
 _just hold me and then_  
 _just hold me again_

Debriefing seems to drag on for ages, but it solves nothing, it's only depressing and repetitive. There are only so many ways to say that the race was a bloody mess, and none of them help even an iota with the fact that the race _was_ a bloody mess.

On the way to the car park, Mark is surprisingly laid back, almost fatalistic in his nonchalance. "Look at it this way, mate. At least now it can only get better."

"Right. Or it could just go on like this all season."

Even with his sunglasses hiding half his face, it's plainly obvious that Mark is rolling his eyes at you. "Someone's cheerful today. What crawled up your arse?"

"Apart from Massa, you mean? Except it wasn't so much my arse as much as the rear of my car."

Mark's eyebrows fly skywards. "And let's all be thankful for that."

You've been team mates for more than a year now, and still his moods still have the power to take you aback. After last season, you got used to the random crankiness, the way he'll hardly even talk to you on some days and act like nothing has happened the next morning. But, moments like this, when he's playful and silly with no apparent reason, even though he should by all means be upset, can still render you speechless and rip a laugh from your throat at the most unexpected times.

"You're such a wanker," you mutter under your breath, but you're chuckling and it feels like the black cloud hanging over your head has cleared a little.

He grins and throws you the keys for the rental car. "Here, I'm even letting you drive. Try not to kill us, alright? And don't say I never do anything for you."

You snort. "Hate to break it to you, mate, but it takes a bit more than letting me take the wheel to cheer me up after today."

But you get inside anyway, while he slides into the passenger seat beside you, long legs folding in.

He waits until you're driving towards a red traffic light until he says, "Yeah, well, I thought I'd save the rest for until we're back at the hotel."

You hit the brakes a little too hard because the mental images his inconspicuous suggestion provokes are sudden and altogether too distracting. When you turn your head to him, his eyes are fixed on the road, as if he's not even paying attention to you at all, as if he didn't expect or notice your reaction, but the self-satisfied smirk playing around the corners of his mouth is hard to miss.

"That'd better be a promise," you warn him, trying your best not to laugh and failing spectacularly.

He looks at you and the smile grows fractionally warmer. "Drive a little faster, will you?"

* * *

_after the battle and we're still around_  
 _everything once up in the air has settled down_  
 _sweep the ashes, let the silence find us_  
 _a moment of peace is worth every war behind us_

It's late when you finally get back from the track, parking the car in the hotel's underground garage and stepping into the elevator that takes you up to your room. A couple of years ago, you only ever got tired on the bad days, but you increasingly find yourself worn out and weary even on the good ones, when the adrenaline from victory should be enough to keep your momentum up.

But it's not, and all you really want to do is fall into bed and sleep and try not to think about next weekend, and how much you'd rather be in Malaysia with the team.

On the ground floor, the elevator grinds to a halt. And you figure fate really hates you because, of all the people, it had to be Alonso who's waiting outside. It's almost funny, but you don't feel like laughing.

His face turns blank the moment the doors slide open and he spots you. For a moment, you almost expect him to wait for the next elevator, but then he steps inside, offering you nothing but a curt nod in greeting.

He's not even looking at you, and you tell yourself you keep watching him out of spite. But if you're honest, you just can't tear your eyes away. It's been too long since you last had a good long look at him. He looks the same he always did. Maybe a little older and a little harder and a little less excitable, but that could also be the hard glare of the halogen spotlights on the elevator ceiling.

Your room is on the nineteenth floor; the elevator is between the first and the second, moving at an excruciatingly slow speed that makes you think you should have taken the stairs instead. The silence that fills the small cubicle is heavy and oppressive, weighing you down until you cannot stand it anymore.

"Good race today," you tell him, forcing the words out because... well, someone's got to make a start.

His eyes briefly flicker to you, just for a split second, before he turns away again. "Thanks."

If anything, the awkwardness is worse now, the silence returning and stretching, filling almost all the space.

Somewhere around the twelfth floor, Fernando bumps the back of his head hard against the wall, looking every bit like he wants to be anywhere else but here. You can sympathize. He does it again. Harder, judging from the sound his head makes when it hits the wood, and it makes you wince.

"Try not to break the elevator, alright? I really don't want it to get stuck." Your voice is sharper than you intended it to be, some of the frustration and anger that's been eating you up bleeding through, and you fully expect him to react with harsh words or sulky silence.

What you don't expect is the little snort that sounds almost like laughter, and the flash of teeth that marks his grin. "Imagine that. You and me, stuck in here all night. Must be your worst nightmare."

The corners of your mouth twitch.

"Something like it," you say, without meaning a word of it.

He doesn't reply, and when the uncomfortable silence threatens to make a return, you press on, saying the first thing you can think of because, really, anything is better than silence at this point. Unfortunately, the first thing you can think of is, "I miss you," which is probably the last thing you should have said. It would be easier to forgive yourself for the slip if it weren't true.

Maybe he hears the honesty in the words, because some of the wariness on his face fades. For a moment it looks like he wants to say something, but the soft ringing sound when the elevator reaches its destination stops him and he shuts his mouth without a word.

"Well. Goodnight." With a brisk nod, you turn around and walk off with fast steps, forcing yourself not to slow down or turn around. Your steps only falter once when you're at your room, and it's only then that you notice that Fernando is behind you.

You frown at him, but he doesn't say anything, just calmly holds your gaze. His eyes are almost black in the dimmed light, and for the first time in what feels like ages, there's no anger in them.

Running a tired hand over your face, you sigh. "I didn't mean–"

"I know," he says before you can even finish explaining that it wasn't this you were missing. Not _only_ this, anyway.

And maybe he really does know because, after all, he's still here, looking like he _wants_ to be here. So you nod and turn around to open the door, and when you step inside, he's right behind you.

The door shuts with a soft click and, as suddenly as that, the awkwardness is back and all you do is stare at each other for a long moment. And then you reach for him and he lets you, without hesitation, and you think that maybe you can work this out after all.

He falls asleep beside you, later, lying on his stomach with his arm curled around the pillow, his breathing even and loud in the silence of the room. His body softly rises and falls with his breathing and his eyes move restlessly under his lids, making you wonder if he's dreaming, and what of. When you reach out and carefully comb your fingers through his once again too-long hair, he doesn't wake, but he stirs and leans a little into the touch.

You lie awake for a long time, just watching him. Through the half-drawn curtains, the rosy gleaming dawn announces the break of a new day.

End.


End file.
